Here We Go Again
by bluecheeseea
Summary: When Max drops some avian DNA, one 14-year-old girl named Carley gets an unsuspected surprise. First fanfic! R&R Please!
1. The Incredible Disappearing Fang

**A/N: This is my first story! I hope you guys like it! And leave me a review, so I know how I can improve my writing… Come on… I'll be your best friend! And if you don't… well, we'll talk about that later ;)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, or any of these characters. Except for Carley. And you can't have her! Now will you leave me alone? **

~Chapter 1~

**Max POV**

"Ma-a-a-ax!" Total cried, as though my name contained four syllables. I rolled my eyes, turning my head towards him, making it obvious that I was annoyed. "What is it, Total?" I said, slowly. I wasn't normally like this to any of my flock, but it had been a long day. We were all in a bad mood.

"I've been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes!" he whined. Is it just me, or was this dog getting more annoying by the minute?

"I know, Total," I said, trying to keep my cool, "so what is it you need?"

"Can we stop to get something to eat? I haven't had anything all day," he complained. I sighed. I had already gotten several of the same requests from Gazzy, Angel, Nudge, and Iggy. The only one who had remained silent was Fang. As a matter of fact, I couldn't seem to recall him speaking at all today, which was strange. Since we started… erm, dating, he had spoken at least a few sentences to me every day. I wondered what was wrong.

"Total, I…" I trailed off. Actually, I didn't know what had driven me to keep us flying all this time. But I'd had a certain sense of urgency to go—somewhere. I didn't know where, but it was as if a hidden GPS system was implanted in my brain, telling me where to go. I know we're supposed to have a sense of direction as an instinct, but this was different.

I shook off my thoughts. It was getting late, and we were all tired. I was being unreasonable. I sighed. "Okay, we can rest, and get something to eat. But first off, does anyone have any idea where we are?"

Nudge spoke up. "Um, I'm guessing that we're somewhere out west. I mean, with all the desert and everything." I tried to hide my surprise at her uncharacteristically short statement.

"Well," I couldn't afford to hurt any feelings, so I tried to state my opinion as sweetly as I could, despite my bad mood. "Does anyone have a more specific idea? If we're near any cities, we can stop somewhere." I waited.

Silence.

Darn. I sighed, yet again. "Um. I guess that means we'll have to fan out and search. Fang, you come with me. Nudge, go with Iggy. Angel, Gazzy, Total, you all go together. We're going in a wide circle, alright? Meet back here in approximately half an hour!" I smiled to myself. Now that I had the watch that my mother had so graciously given to me, I could actually tell when half an hour was up. "Get moving, guys!" They gave me a grumble of agreement. The rest of my flock was out of sight within moments.

Now this was awkward. What is up with Fang? I studied him closely. Weirdly, his wings appeared a shad lighter than usual. I couldn't quite make out his face, since it was behind its usual dark curtain of hair, but if I knew Fang at all, he was concentrating on something. Hard.

I took a deep breath. "So, Fang… what's up?" I asked weakly. There's my usual pathetic attempt at starting a conversation for you. He turned his head toward me for a split second. I gasped.

"Fang! Are you OK?" The change wasn't that noticeable, but anyone who knew him as well as me would be able to tell that he looked somehow… smaller. His facial features were more pointed, too. He shook his head slightly, still apparently in deep concentration. Suddenly, he was gone.

**A/N: Hehe, little cliffy there… Don't worry, I didn't kill Fang! Don't hurt me!**

**Anyway, if you noticed in either the summary or my other note in this chapter, there's supposed to be a character named Carley. She'll come up in the next chapter. Just so you know. **


	2. Carley

**A/N: Second chapter! Yaaay! Anyway. Here we go again…**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride… However, I do own Carley! Yay me!**

~Chapter 2~

**Carley POV**

"Hi! Are you new here? My name's Annabelle! What's yours?" the girl, apparently named Annabelle, said to me, just a bit too loudly. She seemed… perky. Like everyone else here.

I missed Georgia already. "Yeah, I'm new," I replied weakly. I didn't mention the remark that instantly came to mind: _No, I've just never been here before. Duh, I'm new. _"And my name's Carley." I loved my name. It meant free heart.

Here in Orange County, California, I felt less free than ever before.

"Ooh, I love that name!" she squealed. I would've normally loved hearing that. This time, not at all. "So, how was your summer?" Apparently, this was her attempt at starting a conversation. I looked into her big eyes. Surprisingly, she looked truly eager to hear my story.

Unfortunately, my summer had pretty much sucked.

I took a deep breath.

"How about I hear about yours instead? Mine was… uninteresting. Let's just leave it at that." Her forehead creased, and I wasn't sure if she was confused or worried. Typical cheerleader type.

I hadn't had to deal with any of _them_ back home. I had, however, had to deal with just about everything else.

"Oh. Well… I learned how to surf! It was _awesome_! I went down to Florida, and my friend entered me in this surfing contest—_without asking!_ Can you believe her? I was like—" I trailed off into my own thoughts.

I wondered how the other French horns were doing. That's what my best friends and I called each other. Because we played the French horn. I guess we could've been more creative with that one, but I missed them all the same.

Orange County didn't have a music program.

I was sure that Diana, Gabriel, and Brian were having much more fun than I was right now. I missed them. A lot.

Diana had been my best friend ever since I came to Whitewater Middle School. She could be a bit of a drama queen, and a lot of a slacker, but that was just her. I didn't mind. None of us did.

She was the only one who answered my calls anymore.

Then there was Gabe. I'd known him since all the way back to 2nd grade, but we'd never been all that close. Everyone always knew they could count on him for a good laugh, even though he could be kind of geeky sometimes.

And, of course, there was Brian. Me and him hadn't been friends when I first came to Whitewater. Not enemies, either. You could hardly say we knew each other.

But then… something happened. I'm not sure what. We just started talking one day, and we became friends. That was at the end of 6th grade.

We all stayed in contact really well for the first half of the summer, but then Diana, Gabe, and Brian went to band camp.

End of story.

"Isn't that just _crazy_, Carley?" I was taken out of my thoughts by a sudden, rather loud comment from Annabelle. It was rather hard to keep from laughing that she had been talking all this time. "Um, yeah… Listen, I really ought to get to my locker…" I turned on my heel and walked away, looking down all the way there.

I looked at the little yellow slip of paper I'd been given at meet the teacher night that had my locker number and combination on it. _Locker 1172, 21-31-13_, I repeated over and over in my mind. I looked up, just a little late to see that I was about to run into the wall. _Great_. By the time I realized I should try to stop, I was already on the ground, my books flying out of my hands.

_Real smooth, Carley._

Laughter erupted around me, and I felt my face turn bright red. A figure emerged from the crowd and rushed toward me. "Oh my gosh! Are you OK?" the figure, who I could now tell was a girl, asked. I grunted in response. "Here, let me help you with your books… My name's Shaelyn, by the way." She rushed off to retrieve my books. I wondered why she was so eager to help me.

_Shaelyn, huh? Interesting name_, I thought to myself.

Before I knew it, she was back. I blinked. "Here," she said, handing them back to me. She looked at me for a moment, her brow furrowed, as though I was someone familiar she was trying to remember. Her eyes widened.

"Aren't you Carley, the new girl?" she inquired. _How did she know that?_ "Um, yeah, that's me," I replied nervously. "Awesome name," she commented.

"Um, thanks." Although this girl seemed nice, I really wasn't in the mood for a conversation right now.

"Oh, you're welcome," she said cheerily.

Normally, people like this annoyed me. For them, it was all happy, all the time. But there was something about Shaelyn that wouldn't let me get annoyed at her. Which is strange. I normally have no problem being annoyed with people.

"Well, nice meeting you Carley!" she said with a wave. Then she walked off to her locker.

Suddenly, I remembered that this _was _the first day of school. I really needed to get to set up my locker, and then I should be on my way to homeroom.

No matter how little I wanted to be here.

But as I walked to my locker, I had a feeling that maybe something good was coming out of me being here, after all.

It was the sense that maybe, with some twist of good fortune, I'd found a friend.

**A/N: So, how was that? Did you like it? Hate it? Have a sudden urge to destroy it with a lead pipe? (I hope not, on that last one…)**

**Well leave me a review! Constructive criticism is welcome! Thanks for reading ******


	3. The Flock in Vegas

**A/N: For anyone who's actually following my story (I'm guessing there's not many of you though, since my stats page says "0 visitors for the month of November." Not that I mind, I guess it's my fault for not posting in so long), sorry I haven't updated in such a long time! I've been so busy with school, though. But anyway, back to the subject of this story…**

**In case you haven't already noticed, the chapters are basically gonna switch between Max's and Carley's POV. For a while, at least, but maybe with the occasional twist here and there. So. Here we go again. ;)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride**

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~Chapter 3~

**Max POV**

A million thoughts rushed through me at the same time, and I wasn't even sure whether they were my own, Angel's, or even the Voice's.

At the moment, I couldn't care less. My main priority was finding Fang.

I gulped.

Unless it was too late.

I shook that thought off. Fang was fine; I just had to find him…

So I began to look for Fang. Weird, I was pretty sure he was usually the one looking for me. But as the minutes wore on, I began to feel a sense of hopelessness. All I'd seen—besides the sky, of course--in the past five minutes was some sort of black hawk. At first I'd thought that maybe the hawk was Fang. But it was definitely a hawk, not a teenage bird kid.

But then, a new idea came to me, strange as it was. What if, somehow, Fang _was _the hawk? What if he'd developed a new power—was he a shape shifter, like Angel?

It seemed impossible. But then again, we were teenagers with _wings._ And Jeb had told us—though he wasn't exactly a very reliable person—that we could be mutating on our own.

With that in mind, this possibility seemed likely. So I switched from looking for Fang—big, black-feathered bird kid—to average-sized black hawk. This promised to be a bit more difficult.

But I got lucky. I spotted a black hawk in the distance within a few seconds. I smiled to myself. Then, I poured on the superspeed. I could barely see past all my hair, which the wind was slapping to my face, but I knew that I was gaining on this hawk, and fast. But when I was only about ten feet away, the hawk let out a loud _Caw,_ or whatever it is real birds are supposed to sound like, and dropped like a stone. I gasped in surprise. If this was Fang, he was in trouble.

Using my superspeed again, I shot down like a rocket after him. Within seconds, however, the hawk seemed to expand like a parachute. Though I couldn't make out the details, I knew what had happened. I couldn't help grinning.

"Fang!" I yelled, half laughing. I flew straight down, eager to get to him as fast as I could. Though I was glad he was OK, this kid had some major explaining to do. When I was level with him, I could tell that he was actually _smiling_. "Fang—" I started, but I couldn't bring myself to be even the slightest bit mad at him, not when he was grinning like that.

"Max, I have a new power! I can shapeshift, like Angel! I think only into birds, though. But can you believe that, Max? A new power!" Fang exclaimed, leaving him out of breath and smiling.

My mouth dropped open. I'd never heard him speak that much before. "Um, Fang, that's—" I began, but then he did something very unexpected. Just as I realized that he'd flown much closer to me, he pressed his lips to mine. It was—well, how else to put it? It was _awesome_. It took me a few seconds—minutes, maybe—to realize that we still had a job to do. I pulled back slowly.

"Great," I finished my earlier statement. Fang grinned. I'd never seen him this happy before. I couldn't help but smiling back at him.

So, Fang could shapeshift? I didn't really know what to think of that. It would, um, give us an advantage in battle, I thought dizzily.

Fang pulled himself together first. His smile left his face, but his eyes were still joyful. "Um," Fang began, "We should keep looking for some sort of city…" Sometimes, I thought he could read my mind.

"Yeah," I said, still smiling, "We should be on our way." Without another word, we shot off.

About five miles away, we spotted some lights—obviously belonging to a city. "Fang, look, there's a city!" I said, at exactly the same time as Fang stated, "City!" There's the difference between us for ya, in a nutshell. Just as I was about to point out that we should speed up, Fang shot ahead of me.

_Oh, it's on,_ I thought. "Race ya there!" I yelled. I shot forward, using my superspeed. "Hey, no superspeed!" I heard Fang yell, his words growing more distant as I flew. This was perfect. Racing with Fang? I knew I'd win. I could lord this over him for quite a while. I grinned at the thought.

Within moments, I was at the city. I could spot Fang, merely a black splotch in the distance. I'd have to wait for a minute or so. I tried to figure out what city this was, just to pass the time. It was weird, we'd been in the middle of nowhere before. Then, all of the sudden, there was this huge city.

My brow furrowed. That sounded somehow familiar. As I tried to remember where I'd heard this before, Fang came up behind me, panting. He must have tried to go really fast. We didn't get tired easily. "Haha, I beat you here!" I taunted. He was still too out of breath to respond. "Um, maybe we should rest for a minute," I suggested. He nodded gratefully. I resumed trying to remember where I'd heard about this city before.

Suddenly, a memory came rushing back at me. Ella had told me about this city before. She'd come here on a vacation one summer. And I remembered the name of the city too—"Las Vegas!" I said, unable to contain myself. Then I realized how weird that must have sounded to Fang, and I burst out laughing. He shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever understand you, Max," he commented. That just made me laugh harder. After my laughing fit subsided, I remembered why we were here. "We need to—get back—tell the flock—" I said breathlessly. Fang looked at me and chuckled. I glared at him. Then, I realized that my thirty minute deadline had probably passed a while ago. I checked my watch. It had already been almost an hour, just as I suspected.

I put on my 'I-am-Max-and-I-am-the-boss' face. "We've got to go, Fang. And I'm _serious._" He just stared at me. "Come _on! _Double time!"

"Whatever you say, sir," Fang replied. Then he shot off. I followed soon after.

We were back where the flock had first split up within fifteen minutes. Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy, Angel, and Total were already there. "We're back," I announced. Total snorted. "Took ya long enough."

I ignored him. "So, did anyone find any cities?" Nobody said anything. Good thing me and Fang had had a bit more luck.

Angel, apparently having read my mind, said, "Max and Fang found a city!"

Fang decided to speak up before me. "Yeah, we found a city somewhere further north. It's called—" Apparently, he had forgotten what I'd said. He looked at me for help. "It's called Las Vegas," I finished for him.

"Yeah! We're going to Vegas, baby!" Iggy exclaimed. Everyone looked at him. "What?" He asked innocently.

"OK, so does everyone think we should go to a restaurant?" Personally, I didn't think it was a good idea. But I never liked enclosed areas with a large amount of people. However, the rest of the flock, apparently, had no problem with this concept, because my question was met with a happy chorus of "Yes"'s.

I sighed. "Okay, let's head out, then." I took my point at the head of the flock. We started flying to Las Vegas.

My life was getting weirder and weirder.

So. Me and my flock are in Las Vegas. What could go wrong?

For a normal family, probably nothing. For a family of bird kids… it's more along the lines of _everything._

And I knew that. Not to mention the fact that Las Vegas was absolutely _packed_ with people. These variables made for a very twitchy Max. I gulped.

"So, guys," I began nervously, "where do you want to eat?" No response, not even from Nudge.

"Um, I guess we'll just have to look around until we find someplace that looks good." I said. Then, I remembered a certain incident at a certain fancy restaurant.

"And, guys, nowhere too fancy. You all know how well that worked last time." Nudge and Angel giggled. "Oh, come on, Max. You've got to admit, that was pretty fun." I couldn't help but smiling as I remembered the look on that waiter's face. Soon, we were all laughing.

We were pretty famous now, after the air shows and my big speech and all, but it would still create a commotion if six bird kids and one flying dog were spotted in Las Vegas, of all places. So we decided to wear our windbreakers. They made us appear just about normal.

When we were done laughing, I reminded them that, windbreakers or not, six kids and a flying dog wouldn't be welcome in most fancy restaurants. The truth of that statement, at least, was undeniable. So they nodded, and we set off down the Las Vegas sidewalk.

Soon enough, we spotted a casual-looking pizza place. It also happened to have a conveniently large skylight, in case we had to make some sort of great escape.

"So guys, what do you think about this place?" Assorted forms of the phrase, "It seems OK" met my ears.

"Well, I guess we'll go in, then." I patted my pocket, which contained my unlimited credit card.

As we walked through the large, wooden double doors, the amazing smell of real food entered our systems. We almost started drooling.

A cheery-looking waitress came up to us. "Hello, how are you?" she asked. "Good," we replied. "Great! How many in your par—" she began, but apparently she spotted Total. We couldn't exactly put a windbreaker on him, so his wings were in plain sight. Her voice changed to a low whisper.

"Are you those bird kids?" She asked. We 'shhh'ed her. I spoke up. "Yes, but we just need to get something to eat, and we'll be on our way. So please don't make a big deal out of this." She stared at us, her mouth agape.

We tried not to laugh at her. "Well," I said for her, since she was obviously in shock, "Seven in our party, if you include our furry little companion here."

"Follow me," she said weakly. She led us to a big table, directly under the skylight. _Perfect_, I thought. Now I didn't feel totally claustrophobic, and we could make an easy escape, if necessary.

I sat down, and the rest of the flock followed. "Your server will be here shortly," the waitress told us, her eyes looking at none of us in particular. She turned on her heel and walked away quickly.

The flock sat in an awkward silence for a few moments. It was Nudge, of course, who finally broke the silence.

"She seems nice," Nudge stated. We all stared at her for a moment as if she was insane. Then, we burst out laughing, yet again.

We were still laughing when our server finally arrived. "Hello! My name's Zoe, and I'll be your server today. Is there anything I can get you to drink?" At the thought of food, we instantly forced ourselves to shut up.

"I'll have a Coke," I said, trying to sound as sweet as I could. "Sprite," said Fang. "Just a glass of water for me, please," said Nudge politely. "Same here," stated Iggy. "I'd like some lemonade, please," said Angel—well, angelically. "I'd awfully like some Orange Fanta," Total piped up from underneath the table.

Zoe blinked. "Well, how about some appetizers?" she asked, and I knew she regretted it as soon the words left her lips. We all requested various foods at the same time. After some argument, we decided on Mozzarella sticks. She wrote that down, apparently glad that this was a bit let complicated.

"Will that be all?" She asked.

Unable to think of any other ways to frazzle her, I said, "Yup." She grinned, and this one actually looked genuine. In a moment, she was gone.

A few minutes later, Zoe was back. She seemed to be having some trouble carrying the Coke, Sprite, water, other water, lemonade, Orange Fanta, and mozzarella sticks at the same time, and we all giggled at her. She looked both annoyed and embarrassed, but how could blame her?

As soon as she put the drinks and food down, we all dug in. The mozzarella sticks were gone within seconds, and our drinks followed soon after. Zoe gave us a half scared, half disgusted look, and speed-walked away without taking our order for the main course.

"Hey, she didn't take our order!" said Gazzy, stating the obvious. The others erupted into half-joking chatter about how "ridiculous" that was. Suddenly, my mind was filled with thoughts that were not mine.

_She went to get the manager! Do you think we should run for it? _

_Angel,_ I thought, instantly recognizing the voice of everyone's favorite telepath.I made my decision and, without bothering to tell Angel first, I announced, "Guys, we're getting kicked out. I hope you enjoyed your ten minutes of luxury, but we've gotta run for it." They all groaned.

"Why do we always have to run? I want to settle down somewhere for once!" Nudge cried.

I had to admit, I kind of felt bad for the girl. She was always talking about staying somewhere for good, and I was always telling her that it wasn't an option, because… _Why?_ I shook off the thought.

"We'll talk about that later, Nudge. Let's _go!_" I tore off my windbreaker and snapped out my wings, knocking down a few chairs in the process. With a few strong flaps, I was up high enough to fly out of the place. Without further ado, I shot forward, dodging tables at the last second. I could faintly make out the surprised expressions of families and couples as I flew by.

Once I was out the door, I rose a good five hundred feet, so I wouldn't attract too much attention. Within seconds, the rest of my flock was out the door too. Once they spotted me, they flew up to my level.

"That was a close one, wasn't it, guys?" They were silent. I could sense tension in the air.

"Um… what's wrong? Nobody got hurt, did they?" I asked.

It was silent for another moment. "Maximum 'Charging Off' Ride," I heard Total mutter.

I sighed. "Guys, is that what this is about? Look, I'm sorry we keep having to run off, but it's for the best. Please, just trust me for now. I have a plan." Not that all of that was true, but what I really needed was to calm them down.

"Whatever," said Nudge. I winced at the unfriendliness in her voice. "What exactly do you have planned?" she said sharply. I could tell that, although she was trying to sound angry, she was sad… and disappointed. A few sides of Nudge that I rarely saw.

Although my flock (or Nudge, at least) was angry with me, we still had somewhere to go. So I pulled myself together and took charge.

"Well… let's fly a little further out. We should probably keep our distance from the city after that little incident," I said.

I couldn't tell if the agreed with me or not, as none of them said anything, but I started to fly off. I figured that they'd just follow me. I was right.

We flew in silence for the next half-hour or so, watching the landscape change beneath us, weaving in and out of small canyons. It was in one of these canyons that I decided it was time to stop and rest for the night. It wasn't only common sense, but that same invisible force that had been driving me to fly all the way out here in the first place.

So, when I gestured to a medium-sized cave on one of the sides of the canyon and said, "How about stopping here for the night, guys?" They all breathed a sigh of relief.

"You have no idea how long we were wishing you'd say that," breathed Total. I smiled. Classic Total.

Then, we flew into our cave and chose our spots. Iggy settled on a large, flat rock, Angel nestled in a corner with Total; Gazzy curled up by the foot of Iggy's rock. I placed myself at the foot of the cave, and Fang sat down next to me. A forlorn-looking Nudge trudged tiredly to the back of the cave, where she sat down.

On account of the long day, we all fell asleep within five minutes… except for me. I couldn't stop thinking about poor Nudge. I mean, was it really such a bad thing to want to settle down? I really wished we could, but I knew—and I think, deep down, Nudge did too—it wasn't an option.

I gazed over at Nudge. To my surprise, she lay awake as well. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought she was crying…

That was the last straw. Careful not to wake anyone up, I walked silently across the cave to where Nudge lay. Without a word, I sat down next to her. She looked up at me, and I knew then that she had been crying.

"It's okay," I whispered. I gave Nudge a motherly hug. That was what she needed right now; not a leader, a mother.

It was like that that we both drifted off to sleep.

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**A/N: So… how did you like it? Sorry if it was a little boring, but it's all part of the plot… most of it, anyway ;) The next chapter will be the last uneventful one, I promise. And around… chapter 7 or 8, maybe, is when it starts to get**_** really**_** good! Also, REVIEW!!!! If you liked it, let me know, and if you have ideas for how I can improve, let me know that too!!**


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